More Controvery Surrounding Malaysian Flight MH17

Ukrainian officials and monitors on Sunday reported that armed rebels forced emergency workers to hand over all 196 bodies recovered from the Malaysia Airlines site then loaded them onto refrigerated train cars bound for a rebel held city, according to Yuras Karmanau, Plane crash bodies put on train for rebel city. This development Sunday morning came in response to international outrage over how the bodies of the victims were being handled among fears that the rebels controlling the territory were tampering with evidence. Ukraine and the separatists accuse each other of firing a surface to air missile Thursday that downed the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine killing 283 passengers and 15 crew. In addition, Ukraine accuses Russia of supplying the rebels with sophisticated arms which Moscow denies. The rebels have limited the movement of monitors and journalists at the site near the Russian border and Ukraine’s Emergency Ministry claims its workers were laboring under duress, overseen by the armed rebels. On Saturday, an AP journalist saw bodies baking in the heat and piled into body bags by the road or still laid out where they landed in the field. By Sunday though, no bodies and no armed rebels were at the site with emergency workers searching for body parts. Nataliya Khuruzhaya, a deputy officer at the train station in Torez, 9 miles away, said she saw emergency workers loading bodies into five sealed refrigerated train cars on Sunday morning. She added that the train was scheduled to go to Ilovaysk, 22 miles further east toward Russian border, but no further instructions were given. Russian news agencies said the bodies were going to Donetsk a rebel stronghold, while Ukrainian officials expect the bodies to be taken to the government held city of Kharkiv. The deputy governor of Kharkiv, where the government set up a crisis center, said the Ukrainian state railway company provided the refrigerated train cars. Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for monitors for the Organization fro Security and Cooperation in Europe,  told reporters in Kiev via phone from the site: “We’re looking at the field where the engines have come down. This was the area which was exposed to the most intense heat. We do not see any bodies here. It appears that some have been vaporized.”As far as the 102 other bodies, officials have yet to locate these bodies. The latest U.S. intelligence assessment suggests that more than one missile system was given to separatists by Russia in the last week or so, but both Russia and the rebels deny the allegations. In the Sunday Times, British Prime Minster David Cameron called the attack a “direct result of Russia destabilizing a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias and training and arming them. We must turn this moment of outrage into a moment of action…For too long, there has been a reluctance on the part of too many European countries to face up to the implications of what is happening in eastern Ukraine.” Despite calls from world leaders for an independent international investigation, armed separatist limited access to the crash site for the first few days. Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans told the Ukrainian president in Kiev Saturday: “People are angry, are furious at what they hear. Once we have the proof, we will not stop until the people are brought to justice.” Both Putin and Merkel agreed via phone on Saturday that an independent commission led by the International Civil Action Organization should be given full access to the site.

While the crash site reports seems to be an area of confusion, on Sunday, rebel leaders announced that rebels had recovered black boxes from the downed plan and will hand them over to   the International Civil Aviation Organization. Karmanau reports, Rebels to give MH17 black boxes to aviation group, Alexander Borodai confirmed that the bodies recovered from the site would remain in refrigerated cars at the Torez station until the international aviation delegation arrives. It is unclear if rebels and the Ukrainian government are working together or were at odds with each other on recovering the bodies. Borodai said he expects a team of Malaysian experts and was disappoint about how long they have taken to arrive insisting rebels are not interfering with the crash investigation despite reports. According to Kurmanau’s article: “The U.S. embassy in Kiev issued a strong statement Sunday pointing to Russian complicity in arming the rebels, saying it has concluded ‘that Flight MH17 was likely downed by a SA-11 surface-to-air missile from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.’ It said over the weekend of July 12-13, ‘Russia sent a convoy of military equipment with up to 150 vehicles, including tanks armored personnel carriers artillery, and multiple rockets launchers’ to the separatists. The statement also said Russia was training separatist fighters in southwest Russia, including on air defense systems.” Meanwhile, Malaysia Airlines will retire the flight number of the plane shot down over Ukraine announcing in a statement Sunday that beginning Friday MH17 will no longer be used for it Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flights “out of respect for our crew and passengers” and replaced with MH19.

The Catastrophic Effects of Man-made Pollution

According to the 24th annual report released by Natural Resources Defense Council, one in 10 U.S. beaches are dangerously polluted making them unsafe for swimmers. The environmental advocacy nonprofit collected 3,500 water samples from American beaches and evaluated the specimens using the Environmental Protection Agency’s new water safety standard known as Beach Action Value. The BAV sets the threshold for water quality at American beaches to protect swimmers from pollution mostly from sewage overflow and contaminated storm water runoff, the HuffPost’s Sara Gates reports in her article 1  In 10 U.S. Beaches Are So Polluted They’re Not Safe For Swimming. NRDC senior attorney Jon Devine explained to USA Today that: “Results in this year show uptick in failure rate at 10 percent nationwide, but this reflects a newer, more health-protected (standard of safety test). If we were to compare to the old defunct standard, it would have been about 7 percent of samples; which tells us we’re stagnating in terms of progress of water protection.” Gates reports, according to the finding, the NRDC found 17 repeat offenders or beaches that failed the public heath standard in more than 25 percent of its water quality samples in the past 5 years e.g. several polluted beaches in Indiana, New York and Ohio. Ranking the highest in polluted beaches was the Great Lakes followed by the Gulf Coast and New England. As for the least polluted, the NRDC labeled 35 U.S. beaches as all stars as they all met the national benchmark for water quality 98 percent of the time over the last five years including waterfronts in 14 states such as California and Virginia.

While water pollution is a major concern all over the world especially the United States, fracking has become increasingly worrisome as the frequency of earthquake increases in areas where earthquakes rarely happened, if at all, e.g vast stretches of prairie across Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. In recent years, Oklahoma has recorded nearly 150 earthquakes between January and the start of May with most being too weak to cause serious damage or endanger lives. However, these temblors have rattled nerves and raised suspicions enough to start to question their connection with the oil and gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing especially the wells in which the industry disposes of its wastewater, according to Emily Schmalland Kristi Eaton’s article States Confront Worries About Fracking And Earthquakes. Due to the increasing complaints from residents over the years, governments in three states are confronting the issue by reviewing scientific data, holding public discussion and possibly implementing new regulations. The states with few earthquakes historically are trying to reconcile scientific data with the interests of their citizens and the oil and gas companies. Regulators from each state met in March in Oklahoma City to exchange earthquake information and discuss toughening standards for the lightly regulated business of fracking water disposal. In Azle, Texas where hundreds of small quakes have happened, the residents went to the state Capitol earlier in the year to demand action by the Railroad Commission who are the chief oil and gas regulators. In response, the commission hired the first ever state seismologist and lawmakers formed the House Subcommittee on Seismic Activity, reports Schmalland and Eaton. After Kansas had 56 earthquakes between last October and April, the governor appointed a three member task force to address the issue.

While the frequency of earthquakes is troubling, fracking also generates large quantities of wastewater even more than traditional drilling methods. The water is pumped into injection wells sending it thousands of feet underground. Scientists wonder whether this process could trigger quakes due to increasing underground pressure or act as lubricant for faults. In addition, injection well operators could be pumping either too much water into the ground or pumping it at exceedingly high pressures e.g data published by the Railroad Commission earlier this month found ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO Energy has pumped 281,000 gallons or 94 tanker truckloads of wastwater into Azle wells every day for two years. In recent weeks, Oklahoma has experienced 145 quakes of 3.0 magnitude or greater from January to May 2,2014, the Oklahoma Geological Survey reports. Fortunately, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has approved new testing and monitoring regulation for injections wells that take effect in September requiring well operators to collect daily information on well volume and pressure. Nationwide, the United States has more than 150,000 injections wells and only a handful have been proven to induce quakes according to the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Moving from active drilling and pumping to derelict oil wells and gas wells, a study of the latter in Pennsylvania found that hundreds of thousands in the states may leak methane suggesting that wells across the country may be a bigger source of climate changing greenhouse gases than previously thought. According to Mary Kang’s study, a Princeton University scientist, 19 abandoned wells were found leaking various amounts of methane with hundreds of thousands of such oil and gas wells, abandoned and plugged, in Pennsylvania and many more across the country. The problem Bobby Magill reports, Derelict Oil Wells May Be Major Methane Emitters, is that these wells go unmonitored and are rarely checked for leaks. Over the past three years, numerous studies suggest that crude oil and natural gas development especially in shale formations are significant sources of methane leaks. Scientists believe that there is inadequate data available for them to know where all the leaks are and how much methane is leaking due to the fact the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas inventory does not fully include these derelict sites as they are not monitored. Over a 100 year span, methane is 34 times more potent as a climate change greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Even more troublesome is its potency over 20 years which is 86 times. Of all the greenhouse gases emitted by humans worldwide, methane is more than 40 percent of all radiative forcing, a measure of trapped heat in the atmosphere and a measuring stick of changing climate. Kang found that the wells leak so much methane that if the leaks from all the abandoned wells in Pennsylvania are added up that the percentage would be between 4 and 13 percent of human caused methane emissions in the state, according to Magill. However, more studies need to be done to fully understand how common the leaking wells are in the state and how much methane they emit. According to the historical record and the study conducted, there are between 280,000 and 970,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. Kang found that state regulations are inadequate at controlling methane emissions from abandoned wells due to the rules focusing on containing fluids, not gases and the plugged wells are not required to be monitored closely over time.

Cuba’s Raul Castro Mentions Possible Retirement

Cuba’s Raul Castro Mentions Possible Retirement.

This will be an end of an era for Cuba and a new beginning hopefully between the U.S. and Cuba if Raul Castro does actually retire. In Havana on Friday, Cuban president shocked everyone by announcing he may leave his post saying he is old and has the right to retire, but did not announce when the move would be made. On Sunday, he will be named by parliament to a new five year term and Castro urges reporters to listen to his speech. He announced the news while at a joint appearance with visiting Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with a huge smile on his face making it hard for people to tell if he was joking. Castro explained,”I am going to be 82 years old. I have the right to retire, don’t you think?” When reporters tried to ask him further what he meant, Castro told them to stop questioning his decision and listen to his speech on Sunday. The tone of his comments were light and informal at the mausoleum dedication to soldiers from the former Soviet Union who died around the world. The Cuban leader has alluded to the desire to implement a two term limit for all Cuban government positions including the presidency as well as his limited time to overhaul the weak Marxist economy. Many have made the conclusion that this upcoming term will be his last even though no term limits exist in Cuban law. No remarks or comments have come from Washington yet.

 

Most Havana residents who did not know of Castro’s comments were skeptical none the less about his retirement. Castro will be 86 when his term is up in 2018 and most people right now are more focused on who will be his first and second vice president during Sundays proceedings. The positions as of now are taken by two loyal octogenarians who fought in the 1959 revolution. If Castro puts someone younger into one of these positions then for most it would be sign that he was positioning that person to be his next generation successor something he and his brother Fidel never have done. In his December 2010 year end speech to lawmakers, Castro explained that,”The time we have left is short, the task is enormous…I think we have an obligation … to set (the country) on the right course.” When an if Raul Castro leaves the political arena, it would end the more than half a century rule of two brothers who came to power in 1959 against U.S. backed strongman Fulgencio Batista. Armando Gutierrez, a 78 year old Cuban American in Florida and 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion vet, said he hopes Castro was serious about retiring but doubts his successor will bring true political change.

Relations with the United States have been sour since the revolution as one of the key provisions of the 51 year U.S. economic embargo on Cuba states that the embargo cannot be lifted until the Castros are no longer in power. Since taking over for Fidel who is 86 and retired, Raul Castro has made a series of economic and social reform policy, however the island is still ruled by one party. The elder brother also met with the Russian prime minister according to Cuban state run media and the Communist party paper Granma reports the two countries signed an agreement to restructure $20 billion in Soviet era debt Cuba owes. The debt has been a sore point for both countries over the years as it originally was built up in rubles to pay for Soviet services in the 1980s leaving Cuba to question how much it is worth today.

 

Leon Leyson Dead: Youngest ‘Schindler’s List’ Survivor Dies At 83

Leon Leyson Dead: Youngest ‘Schindler’s List’ Survivor Dies At 83.

Great men and women with great stories to tell. I am sadden to hear that another has passed but with his passing I hope people do not forget his life or story. If you haven’t seen Schindler’s List than I highly recommend this movie it is one of my favorite movies by far about the good that can come from such a horrible time in history.

Leon Leyson, who was the youngest of 1,100 Jews saved from the Nazis by Oskar Schindler, has died in Southern California at 83. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Leyson was 10 and six month later his family was sent to the Krakow ghetto where he survived mass killing and deportation to a concentration camp. He lost two brothers, one fled to the family’s village who died in a massacre of 500 residents and the other was sent to a concentration camp. Schindler called him “little Leyson” and was the youngest of the Jewish workers that Schindler saved by declaring them necessary to produce. Schindler also gave him double rations when he was weak and also put his mother as well as surviving siblings on the list. Leyson rarely talks about his experiences. He came to the U.S. in 1949 and taught at Huntington Park High School for 39 years.

 

 

“The truth is, I did not live my life in the shadow of the Holocaust,” he told the Portland Oregonian in 1997. “I did not give my children a legacy of fear. I gave them a legacy of freedom.” However he began to publicly speak about his experiences after the 1993 movie Schindler’s List came out. In 1974, Leyson saw Schindler along with a group of Jews in Los Angeles shortly before his death. Leyson introduced himself and Schindler remember exactly who he was calling him “little Leyson.” Leyson is survived not only by his daughter but by his wife, Lis; son, Daniel, of Los Angeles; sister, Aviva Nissenbaum, of Israel; brother, David, also of Israel, and six grandchildren.

news, history, important people in history, FRANK WILLS

10 People You’ve Never Heard Of Who Changed History.

Great list of everyday people who did extraordinary things that changed the lives of us all by altering the course of history. A little thing called Butterfly Effect or Ripple Effect. See as the eternal optimist all of our lives serve a purpose you just may not know what that is yet.

Major Winter Storm Heads East After Twisters Hit South; 6 Dead – SKYE on AOL

Major Winter Storm Heads East After Twisters Hit South; 6 Dead – SKYE on AOL.

What is going on with the  weather lately? I mean global warming is partially to blame but their are other factors. There is no way 34 tornadoes hit pretty much in the same area of the south just by chance. The snow and the blizzards in the Northern US caused flights some 325 to be canceled stranding holiday travelers.

Connecticut school shooting: Sports world shaken by tragedy at Sandy Hook – Sporting News

Connecticut school shooting: Sports world shaken by tragedy at Sandy Hook – Sporting News.

Moments of silence and tribute are occurring all over the country. These are the tributes these kids deserve that they are not forgotten. It is in our darkest moments that gain the most clarity in that respect these children and adults who died did more than they will never know.